Wine!

Really nice Cote du rhone domain bonval at tesco as well easy drinking,also calvet Bordeaux at 6 pound bargain. French wine at the moment really good value.

Sainsburys and Tesco regularly have this on special offer for £5.75-£6 and the other varieties too. I agree it definitely has a strong blueberry note!

My favourite everyday, (not literally) tipple is Lindemans Tollana Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, which is nearly always £4.50 at Asda: it's deceptively fruity and easy to drink despite being 13.5%!

I take a few bottles with me every caravan trip😊

I has a glass of wine at a meeting the other night - a glass of French Rex Mundi.  It was a Shiraz/ Grenache blend, and very nice!  I usually find Shiraz a little bitter for me, but blended with the Grenache it was very pleasant.  I think you can only generally  get it through Laithwaites, and it's £9.99 a bottle, but worth it, IMHO.

Anyone else tried this?

David

Well, on the subject of French Wine, has anyone beside ourselves done a prebrexit shopping trip?  We spent £178 pounds on ferry to Roscoff and stayed with a friend in Brittany.  We mostly buy bag in a box wine, around 8 to 13€ for 3 litres.  For example JPChenin which is £18 in Sainsbury’s and €9.95 in French hyper markets.  Plus quite a few bottles, especially sparkling.

We brought back the equivalent to 150 bottles, reckon we are saving at least £2.50 a bottle therefore £375, so £200 better off.  Plus a lovely trip to France.

Just in case we go back to the duty free limit of 4 litres per person....We shop at Super U, Leclerc and Géant.  Always lovely wine, never had a bad box or bottle.  Have been doing this for 30 years.  And our livers are still functioning.

A day trip to Calais is perfectly doable from MK, although it's a long day! However we gave up doing so many years ago as things gradually became more expensive in France and British supermarkets became more competitive. When we were on holiday we did just as you did, buy boxes of wine. Unfortunately we found we ended up disposing of a percentage of them because they didn't keep very well. I am sure if and when we return to France we will be tempted to bring a few back but apart from Rhone red wines and Cotes de Gascogne white wine our tastes are now more towards new world wines which are not so easy to find in France. I still remember the cheap litre bottles of wine we used to buy in France which you paid a deposit on, they had a star embossed in the glass and the boys used to like taking them back for a bit of extra pocket money!

David

Likewise David   My taste has changed towards New World wines too, and they are readily available in the UK.  Whenever we go to France, we always bring some wine back, but I suspect it's now turned into more of a tradition than anything else.  We certainly don't bring as much back as we used to.  After saying that, I was quite impressed with the French Rex Mundi I had last week.

David

Funnily enough on the subject of Booze Cruises there was a piece on the One Show tonight about a sudden upsurge of Brits crossing the Channel because of the fear that restrictions might well be put back in place if leaving the EU we do so without a deal. When I saw the show it reminded me of the fact that New World wines are available at the big wine warehouses which I had forgotten about.

David

D'you know - all the years we've been across, we've never used the booze warehouses in Calais.  Firstly, because we've always had the caraven in tow and have never bothered with parking up.  Secondly, when we reach Calais, we are generally just thinking about catching the train or ferry and making our way home.  I really must stop at them one day.

David

David

If you stay at Bien Assise or Gandspette as your last night in France you would probably have time to get to one of the warehouses? Alternatively have a look on Google Earth as it should give you an impression of the parking area and whether you would get the caravan in.

David

Thanks David.  I'll bear all that in mind.  Staying in the UK this year - haven't decided about 2020 as yet. 

David